Post #eurocall2015 reflections on arriving in Padova.

On Tuesday of this week I arrived in Padova. I got off the airport bus and was pleased to recognise a shopping mall I had noticed when researching the area around my hotel on google street view. I stopped for a drink, connected to the free wifi and set about planning my walk to the hotel on my phone. I was surprised when google maps showed a 5 minute walk in the opposite direction to that which I was expecting but it must be right of course! 10 minutes later a kindly receptionist in a different hotel ordered me a taxi to save my sore feet. 

Post conference, I am better able to understand this mundane experience. My faith in my ubiquitous device use and reliance on internet access had prevented my critical use of technology. I should have realised that my device had not updated a real time, location specific map. I had seen a cached map from my earlier planning and used it to dismiss my instinct and better judgement (blisters were an unforeseen, unwelcome consequence). 

The space in our lives where tech and human intersect is a good space for critical thinking. The "seeing double" described by Sian Bayne. Raising awareness of what goes on "under the hood" of the ubiquitous technology that is now just another everyday tool helps us to think critically. Here's one of the 3 such research activities she described in her keynote. 

#eurocall2015 teacherbot paper is here (open access) http://t.co/d0ATn27Aba

— Sian Bayne (@sbayne) August 27, 2015

Entangled fingers (image taken from art installation opposite my hotel - yes I got there in the end!) illustrates our enmeshed lives. Humans are connected, interdependent beings. We inhabit a world where critical post humanism allows us to explore the boundaries between ourselves and our tools. #eurocall2015 brought challenges, stimulation, answers and more importantly questions.

C. Caws and M.-J. Hamel on Critical and electronic literacies

Critical and electronic literacy in this context mean helping students develop skills that bridge the potential gaps in their ability to use their  informal media skills for learning that is engaging while being focused on the task at hand.

The presenters propose to use the term ergonomic approach to CALL design - by which they want to draw attention to focusing on learners' needs when designing learning tasks with conditions that give learners opportunities for interaction with the tool that is used. I see that I am not being very clear here.... sorry. I was trying to say that the presenters in a way want to combine the interactional affordances of a certain tool while having the task design and the learner needs in mind. All the while with an underlining emphasis on the proecess, not so much the outcome. The tool the have used in their research can be found at http://francotoile.uvic.ca

The presenters also make a very valid point on the methodological issues. That along with the quantitative, you need the qualitative. And not only as a one off setting, but with a longitudinal, process-oriented approach in mind. For this they have found design-based research (DBR) as a useful approach as it embeds and itinerative ideology of development oriented research while also allowing various participant roles.

This research seems to make a lot of sense and is ambitious enough to create new approaches and ideas for us all to benefit from.